


night before christmas

by recycledstars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 14:59:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2854988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recycledstars/pseuds/recycledstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It’s that quiet moment, Christmas lights shining in windows and light snow falling, that fate decides they will meet.</i> (Seven Christmases that were meant to be.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	night before christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [newsroom secret santa](http://newsroomsecretsanta.tumblr.com/) at tumblr for [jokennedy](http://jokennedy.tumblr.com/). Posting here to keep all my ducklings together, or something.

_Prologue._

This story begins on the night before Christmas. MacKenzie McHale can’t sleep because she’s so excited. Still the baby of her extended family she has been spoiled accordingly and all month, prettily wrapped gifts have been accumulating under the tree. Every moment her mother isn’t looking she’s been trying to figure out what they are having made the deduction that most of them are for _her_.

Her mother is out visiting, she’s too young to know the details, but she’s home alone with her father who has never been able to resist indulging her so he allows her to open one while he watches the nightly news. 

(He also allows her to eat one of the gingerbread cookies her mother laid out for Santa; at five years old Mac has also deduced that Santa is her mother, so she doesn’t think “he’ll” mind. But because she’s crafty she’ll keep up the charade for another four years, having also realized that this means more presents.)

This story begins on Christmas Eve in 1977. A car bomb explodes in New York City. The details are not important in our story, a Catholic mobster, the Irish Republic Army, money changing hands and a warning from across the Atlantic. What is important is that it makes that nightly news broadcast and MacKenzie’s father allows his five-year-old daughter to watch it because the television is beside the tree and she’s lying beneath it, reading the new book she’s unwrapped.

(Usually she’s sent out of the room whenever there’s a particularly gruesome story.)

The reporter looks like her kindergarten teacher, who Mac is quite taken with. She wears flashy shoes and fashionable clothes and looks exactly like a kindergarten teacher shouldn’t and Mac wants to be her when she grows up.

So she asks her father about it, and he tells her the woman on television is a reporter.

On Christmas Eve in 1977 MacKenzie McHale decides she’s going to be a journalist. 

At the same time, in his dark childhood bedroom Will McAvoy is staring at the ceiling and a worn envelope, coffee stained at the corner, post-marked five weeks ago. He has, rather obviously, been putting off opening it because it contains his LSAT scores. And despite all evidence to the contrary – never met a standardized test he didn’t ace – there’s something about this one, that it’s the ticket out of Dead End Town, Nebraska, that it inexplicably feels like the end of something, the absolute assurance that he will never, ever have to come back here, to this prison of a house.

Outside the window his father starts yelling at his oldest sister, who’s chain-smoking in the barn again. He thinks she’s trying to burn the whole place down on purpose, to get back at him for leaving.

He tears open the envelope.

So it’s that quiet moment, Christmas lights shining in windows and light snow falling, that fate decides they will meet. Everything after that will bring them together. 

 

 

_One._

__They meet on December 23rd at a sort of informal introduction to the new show they’ll be doing for CNN. Everyone else knows each other; he’s the only one being brought in from outside the network and he’s feeling that quite acutely while they all talk amongst themselves.

She’s wearing a red dress and he notices her before they’re introduced, not because of the dress, which clings in all the right places and leaves enough to the imagination to kick his into overdrive, but because she laughs and he hears it from across the bar and for the next four months he’ll dedicate his life to getting the same sound out of her, the same smile.

She’s mid-anecdote when their news director interrupts her for a formal introduction, which irks her and he sees that on her face for a very fleeting second before she – _MacKenzie McHale_ \- smiles politely.

“I’m looking forward to working with you,” she tells him, shaking his hand. 

So of course he has to go and ruin _that_ by correcting her facts when she resumes her story. 

The first interruption is forgivable and she takes it on gracefully, with an amused smirk that might even pass for flirtatious. 

The second? She raises an eyebrow at him, gives him a curt, “Thank you.”  
 _  
_By the _third_ though she’s irritated with him and he can tell but he can never resist an argument, especially with a worthy opponent in a tight dress so when she folds her arms and says, “Well what do _you_ think?” … he gives her an honest opinion. 

The ensuing debate over the reasonable limits of executive power when it comes to national security garners them the attention of their entire staff. (And, in a note to the reader, they’ll never really lose it; what’s lost on them at first is always obvious to onlookers.) It sets the tone for everything that comes after, so that’s really where the show begins, with an argument in a bar.

At the time it doesn’t feel like the greatest of starts: she probably hates him.

He thinks about that for an entire 24 hours, until it’s the night before Christmas and he’s spent four hours googling her and he always has an insatiable need to be liked but he’d _really_ like to be liked by her. And it’s two in the morning, so it seems like a good idea to e-mail her, try to make that happen:

 _We should do a series on what we talked about last night, national security under the Bush presidency._  
  
She responds, which is surprising given the late hour: _I can’t tell if you’re being serious or trying to insult me._

_I like to think you know me better than that._

_I hardly know you at all._ (Which is just so easy to hearin her accent.) _At home or abroad?_

_What?_

_Foreign policy or domestic counterterrorism policy? Because I think we agree on the latter._

_And you’re soft on the former._

_You say soft, I say sensible, let’s split the difference and go with my version._

_I have a feeling you’re going to say that a lot. Why are you awake at two in the morning?_

_Actually it’s seven in the morning. I’m on London time for the next few days. Why are you awake at two in the morning? _

_Well at first I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said about a police state in Fallujah._ (Actually, he can’t stop thinking about what she said in general, how she speaks and the way she moves her hands when she’s making a point.) _Then I started reading up on you. Congratulations on all the awards._

_Thank you. I think. Reading about me kept you up that late? On Christmas Eve?_

_Opposition research._

_Now why does it have to be like that? I think we’re going to do great things together, you and me._  
  
That gives him more than a little pause. A long pause, actually, because he can’t tell if she’s flirting with him so before he can respond she sends a more business-like follow up: _I have to go, my mother’s Christmas runs to a strict schedule. But I like the idea. If you want to send it to the team I know at least of a few of them will be unable to resist working over the holidays. Speaking of which, Merry Christmas._

 __Then a few seconds later she CCs him on an e-mail to all the staff and that’s the last of their private correspondence until after the holiday season.

He spends the rest of the night before Christmas puzzling over it.

 

 

_Two._

She makes the journey to JFK in the beginnings of a snowstorm, performing the impressive feat of making it from their last show of the year to one of the busiest airports in the world on the busiest day of the year just to be told that the weather is even worse on the other side of the Atlantic and Heathrow is closed, so there's no chance of making it to her parents' before Christmas.

(And she just _had_ to go and book the last flight on Christmas Eve because she couldn't bear the thought of missing a broadcast. Typical.)

The weather is worsening so traffic is hellish all the way back into the city, and she's irritated and disappointed and exhausted by the time they cross the Queensboro bridge but even though her apartment is much closer and it's nearly midnight she changes her mind and goes to his. 

(By mutual agreement they're meant to be spending the holidays apart, because she's worried it's too much, too soon, that she falls in love too quickly and abandons all her better judgment when she does. 

The problem is they're hardly ever apart. And the even bigger problem is she never really wants to be.)

So he’s surprised to see her, at his door, luggage in hand.

“I thought you had plans.”

“It seems that fate has intervened.” 

“So I’m your second choice?”

“That’s one way of looking at it. Or you could be my destiny.”

The look he gives her is skeptical as he feigns being unamused.

“Oh come on, it’s snowing hard enough to close the airports, so my _plans_ are to hole up here and wait it out with you.” She plays with the strap of her bag. “Unless you’ve got a better offer. Are you going to let me in?” 

“I might be persuaded.”

She smirks at him, stares at his mouth. “Really?”

“It’s possible.” He steps aside to let her in.

“The weather outside is frightful,” she says, with wide eyes, coy smile. 

He quotes different lyrics back at her: “The neighbors might say.”

“Well we’ll do our best,” she promises, patting his chest.

Actually for all the talk what she remembers most about that Christmas is that it’s _quiet_ , just the two of them, and of all the time they spend in bed, what she remembers most is _talking_. For hours and hours, all through the night and into the morning and on Christmas morning he kisses her and she tells him she doesn’t have a present for him but –

“I can improvise,” she offers, wicked quirk of her mouth. 

After he thoroughly takes her up on it she’s half-asleep, and he’s curled up behind her, breathing in her ear.

He kisses her shoulder. “God, I love you.”

She startles, twists around to look at him.

“Should I not have said that?”

She shakes her head, breathes again. “No. I mean, yes. I mean … which way is it if -”

He kisses her, which saves her from a response, which is auspicious because she doesn’t have a good one. She wants to say it back, tell him she loves _him_ because she thinks he needs to hear it, because she wants it to be true, because she’s so afraid that it is. 

She says it back after he’s asleep and thinks that she probably means it. 

 

 

_Three._

__A week before the first Christmas after News Night 2.0 he receives a call on a Saturday afternoon, and when he picks up she wastes no time on greetings:

“Guess where I am?”

“I would have no idea where you are.”

“Outside your apartment. On the street,” she clarifies, when he doesn’t respond at first. 

“And what are you doing there?”

“Waiting for you to come down and see me?” she tries, hopefully.

“What do you want?” he asks, suspicious. She hardly ever sounds that sweet. 

“Nothing, can't I just –”

There are so many reasons she can't just. “Mac.”

She huffs. “I was in the neighborhood shopping for my mother. Come help me pick out a present, she always liked yours more than mine.”

“That sounds thrilling.”

“What else are you doing? Sitting around your apartment feeling sorry for yourself?”

“Is that what people think I do on weekends?”

“Not just on weekends. Will. _Please_?” 

"Is the sidewalk a nightmare?"

"Not this far downtown."

"Just your mother?"

"Well -"

"I'm not carrying your shopping around all afternoon."

"I'd never ask you to."

Well no, not in words. But he finds it difficult to say no to her when she surprises him, when he hasn’t had time to remind himself of all the reasons he shouldn’t give in to the dulcet lilt of her voice when she wants something, or, even worse, when she’s speaking just for him. (Both, together, are a lethal combination, which is why he’s already finding shoes.) 

"Okay. Give me a minute."

She gives him three, and then there she is, wind catching her hair, gloved fingers pushing it behind her ears ineffectually, looking like a picture. He stares for a minute, braces himself for the full force of her, for the unpredictability of it all. 

Mac catches him but she doesn’t know how long he's been looking. She curls her fingers in a half-wave and _smiles_ at him. Like she used to, not like she does now, now that she’s sad and they’re … what they are.

He wonders what’s making her smile like that, guileless and a little impish. Holiday cheer, maybe.

Or the fact that he took her up on an impulsive offer. That one he’d understand; it’s out of their ordinary, a threat to their delicate balance, the precarious thing they’ve managed to rebuild between them that allows them to work together, him to be around her without … _whatever_. Progress has been made. And this here is one giant leap forward that feels like it could lead to two steps back.

(He’s never really questioned the fact that he’s still in love with her, but if he needed proof that would be it. Smiling at her in the fucking street and he’s nervous.)

“Hi,” she says. 

“Shopping is more in your area of expertise than mine.”

“There’s a little clock shop, just around the corner. It felt … serendipitous. Otherwise the trip was a complete waste of time.” She turns and starts walking and he falls into pace beside her almost instinctually. “I thought we could call it a truce, in the spirit of the holiday, goodwill to all men.”

“A truce?”

She frowns. “You know what I mean.”

“You’re going to your parents’?”

She shakes her head. “Not this year. I have … other plans.” _Oh_. Well. They’ll skate right over _that_ bombshell or landmine or whatever the fuck the revelation is. 

“What about you?” she asks, politely.

“Annie’s coming out from Chicago.” The oldest of his younger sisters, and they have plans to get spectacularly drunk because misery loves company.

Mac asks about her, small talk, but he has three siblings and she has four so it takes a while and by then the sidewalk _is_ busy and they have to stop momentarily. He’s caught watching a holiday display in a shop window. 

"Why do you pretend to hate it? I know you love it." She pokes him in the shoulder, closer than he expects. 

Mac has no way of identifying with the complicated relationship he has with his family – not that she doesn’t try or even _get it_ intellectually, but imagination only goes so far. So he doesn’t try to explain, complicated families beget complicated relationships with the festive season. It foregrounds the lackof normalcy, is a reminder of fucked up holidays past.

So he lies to her a little, often does when it comes to his family, minimizes it; he thinks it’s because he’s trying to protect her from it: "I have a reputation to uphold."

“Don’t worry, you’re in no danger of losing that.”

She lets her hand fall between them, so close to his, and he wonders if it’s subconscious or intentional, if she’s inviting him to hold it or she just wishes he would.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget; she’s so fucking easy to be with. 

He shoves his hand in the pocket of his coat though, to remove the temptation.

 

(He’s been trying very hard not to give her a mile only to take an inch. Because he hasn’t forgiven her, he doesn’t even know how, but she’s so _easy_ to be with, she _knows_ him, he’s always felt understood by her – and he never feels understood, never feels _in_ place. So he tries to remember that he can’t forget. And he tries not to let on that he does, sometimes. He’s learned that he’s vindictive, but he doesn’t want to be unintentionally cruel.) 

 

He calls her after midnight on Christmas Eve. 

Late night phone calls have always been raison d'etre for them, between his insomnia and her inability to leave work at work. But he stopped calling her months ago, because six weeks after her return and they’d fallen into an old pattern before he’d even noticed it was happening. It was just like the last time, the _first_ time, and he was in no way looking to repeat _that_ experience. So he stopped calling her and started dating other women, distractions, and he’s not sure which of the two hurt her more.

But he’s been thinking about her, and it’s that grey area between midnight and 1 AM when she usually answers the phone. And she does, surprised: “Hi –” She speaks to someone else: “No, it’s just work. Hang on. I’ll take it outside.”

“Work?” 

“Well you are _very_ hard work. Okay. What’s your latest stroke of brilliance that can’t possibly wait until morning?”

“You think I’m brilliant?”

“ _Will_. It’s … twelve thirty in the morning.”

He’s not really calling for any particular reason, didn’t even consider the possibility she might have company and _that_ will keep him up for the rest of the night. “I was thinking, we should look into the stories that we missed this year.”

“Missed?”

“You know, when we were busy covering other things, the stories that got cut because we didn’t have the time. At least some of them were important.”

“That’s a good idea. And it would have been just as a good an idea tomorrow morning.”

“I didn’t think I’d be interrupting.”

“You weren’t,” she says quickly. “Not – I was nearly asleep.”

“Well anyway, I’m sorry.” 

There’s a pause.

“You think it’s a good idea?”

“Yeah. You should send it to the staff.” Another pause. “There is the possibility of troops in Sudan, I got that confirmed by another source.”

“And Obama signed up for Obamacare.”

“You e-mailed me. One of your missed stories should be Palin and death panels, in August something like _forty percent_ of Americans still believed it.”

“How many of those do you think are in our audience?”

“If we’ve done our job right I hope none of them.”

“I think we’ve done our job right.” He hesitates. “It’s been a good year.”

“It has.” It sounds like she’s smiling. “Are you coming on New Year’s Eve?”

“Are you?”

“Does your answer depend on mine?”

A complex question; he could write an essay-length answer. She sounds almost _hopeful_ and he could bring in a team of experts to analyze every cadence in her sentences. “No. And, yes, I think so.” 

“Then I’ll see you there.”

They both linger on the line for a while.

 

 

_Four._

__They visit her family over the holidays, because when she tells her mother they’re getting married her attendance at Christmas becomes all-but-compulsory to smooth things over. Her mother’s words weren’t exactly _you’ve got a lot of explaining to do young lady_ , but they were close. And since she can’t really explain it satisfactorily, she figures the novelty of their visit will be enough of a distraction.

Besides, as she says to him when he gives her a slightly panicked look: __  
  
“There’s no way in _hell_ I’m not rubbing this diamond in the _face_ of every single one of my smug married cousins.”

(The TV star angle probably won’t translate, but the ring will definitely transcend cultural barriers. And there have been too many pointed questions at family functions over the years for her to not want to brag, a little.)

He raises an eyebrow at her.

“You don’t understand, you’ve never _been_ a woman over thirty –”

“That’s obviously true.” 

“Well trust me. I’ve _earned_ this.”

So they go, and as long as her mother manages to keep her unsubtle hints to herself (after the entirely tactless-on-multiple-fronts _well you’re still not too old for grandchildren_ ), at least in front of Will, she’ll consider the whole thing a success. 

 

She drives, because unlike him she actually slept on the flight (always can, always does) and because it usually works better than her trying to give directions, being accused of not being able to read a map, him _ignoring_ her directions and then getting mad when they end up completely lost. 

Besides, she likes the trip up to her grandmother’s house. It reminds her of being nineteen and madly in love with a man who turned out to be more in love with himself (it could be said that she has a _type_ ) with him teaching her how to drive. Amongst other things. And she’d be inclined to repeat a few of them out of nostalgia if he wasn’t pissing her offquite so much with his running critique, verbal and otherwise.

She pushes him back to his side of the car when he leans over to check her speed, giving her a chiding look. (And okay, she might be going _a little_ fast, or, 10 miles over the posted speed limit. But it’s not like there’s any harm in it.)

“It’s just the conversion to the metric system,” she says.

“Your speed limits are still in miles per hour.”

She gives him an imperious look. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware you wanted to take the backseat.”

He opens his mouth to say something else so she reaches out and turns the radio up. The station is playing a countdown of Christmas number one singles, most of which are _punishing_ to listen to, which is good, because he deserves it.

Still, she has a soft spot for The Human League, turns it up and sings along with more enthusiasm than skill, dramatic rendition interrupted by his:

“Would you watch the road?”

“I’ll watch for a place to dump your lifeless remains if you don’t _shut up_.”

 

Her grandmother’s house belongs in a movie and probably undoes any progress she’s ever made challenging British stereotypes. (Which isn’t much; he laughed when she told him about her school days and friends called Millie and Tilly and the like.) She stops him with a hand on his shoulder, ring on her finger catching her eye. 

“Don’t worry,” she says. “They’re going to love you, more than I do right now.”

“Is that really saying much?”

“Yes.” She leans across and kisses his cheek. “It’s saying a lot. I love you Will, just … try to remember that. And that they’re not as scary as they might seem at first.”

“That’s just _great_ , really, you’re putting my mind right at ease. Anything else?”

“Don’t say _anything_ about soccer.” 

 

 

 _  
Five_.

She’s reached the stroppy, impatient phase of pregnancy where his enthusiasm, which used to be cute, has started to grate on her. Because there’s _nothing_ to be enthusiastic about when it’s _your_ body being overrun and you have to use the bathroom every five fucking minutes while you’re _trying_ to run a news division. 

(When they were talking about it in the abstract, about having children, she didn’t really think it through. It hadn’t occurred to her that she’d have to suffer for _nine months_ to get to that part.)

Evidently she’s meant to love every second. Actually she thinks it’s like being possessed: she cries for no reason and she doesn’t _taste_ anything like she used to and she can’t eat anyway, because there’s a soon-to-be baby pressing up against all her internal organs. And she keeps having nightmares about Sigourney Weaver in _Alien_.

And, the greatest insult of all, she can’t wear any of her shoes. 

So she’ll admit, she’s been a little moody since the seven month mark. Maybe a lot moody. 

(“It’s glowing, not _glowering_ Mac.”

“I’ll show you glowering … after you come here and pick that up for me because I can’t reach.”)

Even Pruit is afraid of her, so there are upsides. 

It will all be fine, she tells herself, if she can just make it until Friday, when the office will wind down for the holidays and she’ll have ten weeks to celebrate Christmas and have a baby before going to back to work. (And _yes_ , she’s doing it in that time frame because there’s no way in _hell_ she’s losing all the ground she’s gained over the last six months so their new little person is just going to have to fit into her schedule.)

She’s working, reading their quarterly report with her feet in his lap, nudging him with her toes every now and then to remind him that he’s meant to massaging them properly, not one-handed while he flicks through the Internet on his phone finding distracting anecdotes:

“Did you know that fewer babies are born on Christmas day than any other day of the year?”

She looks up at him over her glasses. “Where are you getting that?”

“Didyouknow.org.”

“Sounds like a solid source.”

“Wouldn’t it be funny,” he said, “If we had a Christmas baby?”

She glares. “We have seven people coming to dinner so _no_ , that wouldn’t be funny.”

“You’re right, that would be twenty five days early which is nearly a month which is nearly –”

“We’ve talked about this, there’s no kitchen timer on normal gestation.” Except if she’s even a _day_ over 39 weeks she’ll be at her obstetrician’s office at seven in the morning demanding extreme measures be taken. And he’ll just have to get over his fear of general anesthesia and surgical complications. 

She nudges him with her foot. “Will you put your phone down and do it properly please?”

There is one other perk: he hasn’t been able to say no to her in _months_. Every time he tries all it takes is one look at her and gets a besotted, proud look on his face. 

He tosses his phone onto the coffee table and gives her his whole attention. She observes him over the top of her glasses and hides her smile around the highlighter in her hand. 

 

Mac is setting the table for Christmas dinner - despite his entirely sincere offer to do it so that she can spend the rest of the day relaxing before their house is overrun with people – because, “frankly it would take longer than it’s worth to draw you the diagram of where all the cutlery should be,” and she’s moved into the kind of crabbiness where he finds it’s best to just stay out of her way and let her do things her way.

Candles are the finishing touch to her centerpiece and as she leans across the table to place them in the middle he hears a sharp intake of breath.

She pauses with her back to him, unusually still, and lets out a small sigh with an edge to it he’s never heard before. 

“You just _had_ to say it didn’t you?” she murmurs stiltedly. 

“What?” 

“The other night, you said it would be _funny_.”

“I don’t think –”

“I’m going to kill you.”

Wisely, he decides not to argue that point.

Ten hours later their Christmas table is exactly as they left it, candles unlit, plates untouched, but none of that matters at all because after what feels like _finally_ they have a daughter. 

(A gift that for her came not a momenttoo soon, despite what the calendars say.)

 

 

_Epilogue_

__Manhattan is never silent so a quiet night is where we will leave the story, snow falling in the streets of New York and the news on TV. It continues of course but this seems like as good a place as any, with a one-year-old child grabbing at the already-wrapped gifts under the tree.

“Mine?” she asks, small hands destructive but questioning persistent. The paper tears a little and she drops it into the growing pile that she’s decided is for her.

(All of it makes Mac wonder, like mother, like daughter.) 

Mac sighs, “No. Stop. Come _here_.” She reaches out for Santa’s little helper. “Why don’t we open one that is for you?” 

Then, hopefully, the baby will be occupied enough for her to finish wrapping the last of their gifts. In an ideal world the baby would be asleep of course, but she seems to have caught her parents’ late night schedule.

Mac picks a gift at random, since most of them are, in fact, for the menace in her lap, trying to wriggle away. “Mine, mine, mine.”

“This one is yours. You can open it.”

Her daughter looks up at her with wide eyes, wide smile and the type of enthusiastic nod only a one year old can produce. 

She nods which garners a squeal of delight and the excited shredding of paper. 

“You don’t want to read the card first?” she asks her daughter dryly. The baby is too busy chewing on the wrapping paper to even try to answer. Mac checks the gift – not at all what she was hoping for, an ornament that says _my first Christmas._ It’s beautiful, but child un-friendly. __  
  
“Let’s hang it on the tree,” she says, tugging the paper from her daughter’s mouth.

It’s made of glass and it catches the light and the baby oohs and it’s one of those moments, that she wishes she’d thought to catch on camera. 

(Mac has been documenting world events her entire adult life, but she’s never been particularly good at immortalizing her own life. Now though, it seems like every moment is precious and fleeting: it’s only been a year and already so much has changed. She wants to remember all of it even though she knows it’s impossible.)

She scoops the baby up with one hand and carefully holds the fragile ornament in the other and stands. “Where should we put it?” she asks, rhetorically.

(The answer is definitely _far, far out of your reach_.)

Her daughter picks a spot so Mac guides her hands until it’s hanging from a branch sturdy enough to bear its weight. The story continues, of course, and this will happen again, year-by-year. 

Back on the floor, Mac reaches for one of her own gifts, something she knows will at least distract the baby long enough for her to finish at least one of the tasks on her endless to-do list.

“More?” her child asks sweetly.

“Yes, one more.” 

It’s a book, an illustrated copy of _The Night Before Christmas_ , and it’s a point of pride that her daughter already likes books. “Read,” she demands, clapping her hands happily.

“Okay. Just once.”

So she pulls the baby into her lap and they open to the first page but before she can read the clock ticks over to 8 and her daughter starts kicking her feet. 

(Remember, it’s a quiet night with the news on TV.)

“What?”

“Dah,” she exclaims, trying to wriggle free. 

“Yeah, that’s your dad.”

“Dah-dah-dah.”

“Okay.” Mac reaches out and turns up the volume. “You want to watch the news?”

Their daughter nods and picks up the beautifully illustrated copy of a children’s classic (which she chose specifically to last through the years) and starts chewing on the corner.

She takes out her phone, records it for posterity: “Who’s that?” she asks.

“Dah-dah-dah.” 

_You’ve got a new fan_. She sends Will the video. _Evidence, for when you start to doubt it in twelve to fifteen years.  
_  
 _Should you be letting her watch this shit?_ He sends back in the first break: _Won’t she end up traumatized or something?_

 _She’s going to end up fine._  
  
It’s not really the end but that’s where we will leave the story: all is calm, all is bright and fate is smiling.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The pregnancy dates were hand-wavey I know (since canonically she'd be due late January, assuming it was actually the night before he went to prison ... ) so there maybe should have been a little more angst on both their parts, but it is true that 39 weeks is an average only, and there's a five week window here. So indulge me a little? 
> 
> I've written some more overly detailed notes on why certain things where the way they were [here.](https://littlebitsofmad.livejournal.com/1937.html)


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